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The T-V repairman...a vanishing breed?

C

CrankyYankee

(From the AP)

PORTLAND, Maine --When Dick Waterhouse started repairing televisions 47 years ago, the old tube sets were encased in wood consoles and built to last.

Not any more.

(Read this story at the following link:)


http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2006/01/01/tv_repairman_keeps_up_with_the_times?mode=PF<P ID="signature">______________
"What's That?" "French Horns!"

</P>
 
> (From the AP)
>
> PORTLAND, Maine --When Dick Waterhouse started repairing
> televisions 47 years ago, the old tube sets were encased in
> wood consoles and built to last.
>
> Not any more.
----------
Interesting. My grandparents' old wooden colour set from 1968 with no UHF tuner was 35 years old when they sold it, and when I last saw it in 2002, it still worked beautifully - except for the fact that you needed pliers to change channels since I broke the knob off accidentally in 1994. It was a very high quality unit, and fortunately where they lived there was no need for a UHF tuner until the late 1990s when the first UHF station signed on in the area. I don't know if that set was cable-ready, as they only ever used an outdoor antenna.

Our old wooden colour UHF Panasonic also lasted a heck of a lot longer than the new sets, from 1969 to 1988 - 19 years. Like my grandparents' set it needed pliers to change channels on the VHF tuner towards the end. This set was cable ready.

On the other hand, we got a JVC set in 1985, and it only took six years for it to have significant problems. You had to bang it a few times to turn it on after hitting the power button. By 1997 the picture became lousy, with the blue tones becoming absent. The Panasonic set we replaced it with at that time has never performed as well as the JVC did when I was young.

The lounge at my school has a set that appears to be from the late 70s. It has a single knob, and when you go past channel 13, the knob displays A, B, C, D, E, and F. Behind the console cover there are small knobs to set six UHF channels, labelled A through F. I've never seen such a strange setup. The picture quality is pretty lousy as well, considering its age - and for some reason neither the CBC English or French channels are available on it, even with the cable converter.<P ID="signature">______________
From WNBC-TV New York this is Liiiiive at Fiiiiive!</P>
 
I can remember having audio-only for a few days until the TV repair man could get to us for a house call and cahnge a tube. Definately a relic of the past. My grandmother was the last hold out for color, she kept her black and white until it literally died about 1982.<P ID="signature">______________
Have a Happy New Year!
http://www.thebig8.net/have_a_happy_new_year_with_cklw.mp3</P>
 
My mother had a late 90's Sanyo set that only lasted 2 years because of being hit by lightning. I got to look inside the set and all there was inside besides the picture tube and speaker was a 6 by 6 printed circuit board that contained everything else. It's no wonder that it's cheaper to just buy a new set in most cases.

I'd think that there would possibly be a need for someone to repair higher priced widescreen sets, but is that even available in some places now, and how many of the remaining repairmen have the training or willingness to work on them?<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by ccmfan on 01/02/06 06:30 PM.</FONT></P>
 
> The lounge at my school has a set that appears to be from
> the late 70s. It has a single knob, and when you go past
> channel 13, the knob displays A, B, C, D, E, and F. Behind
> the console cover there are small knobs to set six UHF
> channels, labelled A through F. I've never seen such a
> strange setup.


My grandparents had an RCA floor console model that they got most likely in the late 70s. Turning the RCA logo unlocked a panel which exposed the horizontal wheel on which the VHF channel numbers were, followed by the letters A-F. The letters were removable and could be replaced with the numbers 14-83, which came on a sheet supplied with the set and you could tune 6 UHF channels just like the set you described.
 
> My grandparents had an RCA floor console model that they got
> most likely in the late 70s. Turning the RCA logo unlocked
> a panel which exposed the horizontal wheel on which the VHF
> channel numbers were, followed by the letters A-F. The
> letters were removable and could be replaced with the
> numbers 14-83, which came on a sheet supplied with the set
> and you could tune 6 UHF channels just like the set you
> described.
----------
This was also an RCA set I believe, but it was a fairly small tabletop set. I believe the letters were also removable - they looked that way.

We had a VCR years ago that had a similar tuner, with a row of pushbuttons that were tuned by dials under a cover underneath. The VCR came with a sheet of replacement digits, which even included what was then the three networks and PBS.<P ID="signature">______________
From WNBC-TV New York this is Liiiiive at Fiiiiive!</P>
 
Some of the posters on this thread are showing their age, carrying on about how older TVs were more reliable than newer sets. My parents bought our first TV in 1948, about a month before I was born. By the time I had graduated from high school in 1966, we had gone through five black and white TV sets, in three of those we had to replace the picture tube, for, as I remember, about $200 a pop. And remember--that was black and white! I remember numerous monthly visits from our friendly TV repairman. Besides the picture tube, there was also constant problems with the click VHF tuners. We used to keep an aerosol can of something to squirt into the tuner to clean it when we could no longer recieve the channel 12 in our area. Ofcourse, it was standard to have to fine tune the tuner every time you changed the channel. When I got out on my own in 1970, my first color tv lasted about three years, with constant problems with the UHF tuner, as well as the same problems with the VHF click tuner. I bought my own aerosol can. By the time the picture tube went in 74, it had become ecomomically smarter to just buy a new set, since prices had gone down so much (about $450 for a 19 inch). But now, 30 years later, I have only been through 3 more sets, and one of those was because, I just had to give in for remote control, even though my old click tuner set still worked perfectly well. Last week at Walmart, I saw 23 inch color sets for $88!! And 27 inch sets are for sale all over the place for less than $200! BTW, any set manufactured beginning in 1964 was required by law to have a UHF tuner, so any set made in 1968 would have to be all channel.
 
> no longer recieve the channel 12 in our area. Ofcourse, it
> was standard to have to fine tune the tuner every time you
> changed the channel.
-------------
I don't see anything wrong with being able to fine-tune each channel. If you have an antenna and a channel doesn't come in well, you may be able to get better reception from a manual fine-tune set than a modern automatic one. It's also useful for DXing.<P ID="signature">______________
From WNBC-TV New York this is Liiiiive at Fiiiiive!</P>
 
I can remember the name of our TV repairman. It was Mr. Brefini( can't say if the spelling is correct tho...)
He had two big black cases that he brought along with a mirror that he'd set up in front of the set so he could see the reflection of the picture while working from the back of the set. One case had tools and "things" and the other case was jam-packed with tubes.

Only about twice did he give us the sad news that he'd "have to take the set back to the shop for a few days".

Our Admiral set had that big white dot on the screen that would fade away ever so slowly after you shut it off.<P ID="signature">______________
"What's That?" "French Horns!"

</P>
 
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